On Friday, I had three deals close for properties that were sold in the last few months, and two of those deals were my best friends.

There are always issues that linger on or after closing, and there’s no such thing as a “standard” closing.

Some are smoother than others, and some are a downright nightmare…

Thankfully, those “downright nightmares” that I speak of did not transpire last Friday.

Instead, I had three deals that closed, all with their own, minor issues.

Well, I guess what constitutes “minor” and “major” issues should be left up to the opinions of the home-buyers themselves.  But from my perspective, I’ve seen the worst, and then I’ve seen everything else.

My brother and his wife were trying desperately last week to get into their soon-to-be new home to take kitchen measurements for their impending renovation, but of course, there was an “issue.”

Missing keys have become an epidemic in the real estate industry, the causes of which are likely laziness and neglect on the part of Realtors and/or their sellers.

The last four inspections I have gone to conduct have all seen my clients and I frustrated to find no key on the property.  Either the agent removes it and forgets, or the sellers don’t remember to leave a key for the inspection the following day.

Either way, my brother and his wife showed up to their gorgeous new property and could not gain entry to the house.

That night, and the following morning; and every single day for the next five days, I spoke with the listing agent in attempts to get the key to the property so that they might conduct an inspection as is provided in their Agreement of Purchase & Sale.

The listing agent is a fantastic gentleman, which is more than I can say for many of my other “colleagues” in the industry who don’t believe in seeing a transaction through to the end, and he worked with me to have a key couriered from St. Catharines two days before the transaction closed.

The sellers of the property had already moved to India, and they didn’t notify their agent or their lawyer where the house key was.  You might ask why there was only one house key, but that’s a question we’ve all been asking rhetorically for the past week…

You might also ask what could be so difficult about obtaining a single key and having it sent to Toronto?  Whatever the answer, it took five days, and my brother and his wife had to delay their renovation schedule ever-so-slightly.

On the day of closing, the listing agent’s office called me and asked me to return the key that I had “borrowed,” even though it was now in the possession of its rightful owners.  They had obtained the key two days before closing, but the listing brokerage felt it was a matter of law to possess the key on the day of closing and then hand it over to the sellers or their agent.

They wanted me to bring the key back to their brokerage so that I could hand it to them, and then they could hand it right back to me 0.8 seconds later.

For real – they insisted.

Sometimes, the law over-steps its bounds…

My friend Greg also closed on his house on Friday, and he had a barrel of problems with his property.

He conducted an inspection of the property two days before the deal was scheduled to close, and of course, there was no key and no lockbox.  As I said – it’s an epidemic.

But upon inspecting the exterior of the property, he noticed that there was a giant oil barrel on the roof of the garage, in addition to a rusty old barbecue.

He had contracted to take “vacant possession” of the house as per his Agreement of Purchase & Sale, and for the sellers to leave behind boxes, mattresses, garbage, a rusty BBQ, and a freakin’ oil drum was certainly in violation of the Agreement!

How does a person dispose of an oil drum anyhow?

Greg was furious, and I called the listing agent and we threatened not to close the deal.

The listing agent told me that his client was “worried that leaving too many items on the curb for pickup at once would prompt the collectors to leave it all behind.”  He asked that we hold on to the items for two weeks until the next pickup.

Um, no.

I told him that we would pay to have the items removed and then we would bill his client for the services rendered.

This is where you get into a serious legal issue, as you wonder how much money you would pay a lawyer to chase a few hundred bucks worth of garbage collection!

You really have two options: 1) Not close the deal, 2) Pay for repairs/removal and bill the seller.

If the seller doesn’t pay, then you’re into a whole other set of issues.

My third client that closed on Friday has the largest “issue” of any of the three.

Colin took possession of his Wellington Street condo after 5PM on Friday, and as soon as he keyed into his new condo, he sighed out of frustration.

The kitchen has a mirrored-backsplash, and the mirror over the stove was cracked.

Cracked, broken, smashed, “damaged” – whatever you want to call it, this was an issue that wasn’t present when he bought the condo.

So what is the remedy now?

Well, Colin needs to notify his lawyer that the condo was in damaged condition when he took possession, and the seller should pay to repair the damage.  Of course, this is easier said than done.  Colin will eventually repair the glass and send the bill to the seller, but how can he ensure that the seller reimburses him?  What if the seller moved to China?  Or what if the seller moved down the block and simply says, “no?”

I had a young couple that purchased a house up at Yonge/Finch early last year, and theirs was the worst “possession nightmare” that I’ve ever experienced.  Their entire kitchen was infested with bugs as the previous owners had left out food, drinks, and garbage on the kitchen counter and all over the floors.

We debated whether the sellers did this on purpose (since in January of 2008 the market was at its worst and the seller/builder took it on the chin), but in the end, my clients had to pay to have the kitchen fumigated, and they billed it back to the seller.

To make matters worse, the stove was broken, and despite our clause that read “…chattels & fixtures shall be in good working order upon completion,” the seller wasn’t about to purchase a brand new, stainless-steel stove without a fight.

The sellers also removed anything that wasn’t bolted down; I mean who takes four toilet-paper-holders with them to their new house?

This became a matter for the lawyers, as there really isn’t anything a real estate agent can do at this point.  I tried to speak to the listing agent and I even called the seller directly (I’m not supposed to do that), but the listing agent pulled chute and said “Trust me – I’ve been doing this for 22 years; don’t get involved,” and the seller told me off and hung up on me.

I’ll honestly say that I don’t know how the story ended since my clients never contacted me again, but I’m hopeful that the lawyers were able to work things out and that my buyers were reimbursed for the stove and the fumigation.

These stories aren’t meant to shine a negative light on the otherwise joyous “day of closing,” but rather demonstrate that human error and human nature can play a role in the procedure.

The only thing that you can do is leave your property in impeccable condition when you sell, and hope that what goes around, comes around, and when you buy your next property, your good deeds will serve you well…